Bullets and Poison
by Aunt Jo the Grammar Goddess
Summary: Lematrice. AU, I suppose, because of what we learned in TE. Basically about Lemony and Beatrice in love. Involves the Violet Snicket theory. Enjoy the last chapter!
1. Murderer?

He sat in his favorite chair with his feet curled up beneath him. He was, as usual, reading. The book was the newest in his favorite series by his favorite author. Nothing could make this day any better, he thought as he turned the page. He'd missed lunch because of chapter thirty-four. He'd missed dinner because of chapter seventy-seven. The good part _always_ came around chapter eighty or so. What?!? Maribella Catalina Santiago, a murderer?!?! No, that couldn't be right! Why would she kill her sexy roommate-turned-lover-turned-stalker? Gasp! Could it be because she—?

"Little brother, alias Lemony Snicket! Look at me!" Kit. Charlotte. Snicket.

"What?" he asked irritably. It was bad enough to be interrupted whilst reading a new book, but being interrupted at the good part was considered the worst of sins in his opinion. He closed the book over his finger. Maribella was _not_ a murderer. If she was the murderer, then Beatrice was moving back. So no, it would never happen, not in a thousand years.

Beatrice. He had quite a crush on her. He would say he loved her except he hadn't seen her in close to four years. You can't love someone if you don't see them.

They'd meet when they were five at a VFD gathering their parents had attended. They'd been friends ever since. When puberty hit him like a ton of lead bricks, he'd started to notice things about her body—her hair, eyes, hands, lips, breasts, and hips… She'd been the subject of many dreams. He shook his head. Maybe it was simple lust. He hoped not.

She had moved away five weeks after his thirteenth birthday. She'd told her best friend Kit she was never coming back. Never.

Kit was still rambling. "…Dewey and I have a date on Saturday, and we're going to stay here…alone. Take the hint and make some plans, okay? Umm, anything else I was supposed to tell you…? Oh, yeah," she waved her hand dismissively. "Beatrice is moving back. She's gonna be here in two weeks, around the fourth or fifth." His head snapped up instantly. Beatrice? Coming back? Never.

Jesus Christ! he thought, looking at the book in disbelief. Maribella _is_ the killer!


	2. Changes

It was the fifth. Beatrice is supposed to be here today, he thought excitedly. He had the next few years planned out already: he was going to ask her out. He'd kiss her. Eventually touch her. He planned on making love sooner or later. (Later, most definitely later.) He'd marry her, and they'd have a baby. No, babies.

_She'd better be here_, he thought. He'd finished the book the night before. Maribella had killed her roommate/lover/stalker. _She'd better be here._

She was there, and he and Kit helped her move in. Every time he glanced up, she was looking at him. He decided that it was a good sign.

But she had changed. She had gotten all depressed and although she dressed in colors, they were bipolar. She wore maroon, midnight blue, royal purple, white, orange, and pink alongside the black. She'd told him she had a dark, Gothic personality. While they unpacked, she'd popped in a couple of CDs in a five disk changer she had. (It would be perfect for listening to audio books, he thought.) She played a few screamy rock CDs, and then it changed and they were listening to a female singer. She had a spectacular voice and great lung capacity, but her lyrics were…rather dark, to say the least. _A female Emo singer. Hmm._

"Amy Lee's not Emo, Lemony. She's Goth rock and she's my idol. There's a difference, you know. She mixes heavy metal guitar with absolutely beautiful piano and strings pieces. And her songs aren't written to earn money. She writes about her past, things that have happened to her. It's true emotion. Here, let me show you." She pressed the skip button three times.

She listened for a moment and pressed the skip button again. He listened closely. Nothing. Then he heard what sounded almost like wind, but not quite. Guitar started in suddenly and he and Kit both jumped. Beatrice laughed and continued unpacking and folding clothes.

"_I tried to kill the pain,  
__But only brought more.  
__(So much more.)  
__I lay dying,  
__And I'm pouring crimson regret,  
__And betrayal.  
__I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming.  
__Am I too lost to be saved?  
__Am I too lost?  
_

_My God, my tourniquet,  
__Return to me salvation.  
__My God, my tourniquet,  
__Return to me salvation._

_Do you remember me?  
__Lost for so long.  
__Will you be on the other side  
__Or will you forget me?  
__I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming.  
__Am I too lost to be saved?  
__Am I too lost?_

_My God, my tourniquet,  
__Return to me salvation.  
__My God, my tourniquet,  
__Return to me salvation._"

A guitar solo of sorts began. It made him feel uneasy, anxious, one could say. Then when he thought he could bear it no more:

"_I want to die!!!_

_My God, my tourniquet,  
__Return to me salvation.  
__My God, my tourniquet,  
__Return to me salvation._

_My wounds cry for the grave.  
__My soul cries for deliverance.  
__Will I be denied  
__Christ's tourniquet?  
__My suicide._"

Beatrice stopped the CD and resumed unpacking her clothes.

When they had finished, they were sitting on the couch, watching a movie (Kit playing chaperone and sitting in the middle) when his sister's cell phone rang. Dewey. "Hey, babe. What? You're breaking up. Hold on." She looked over at them. "Behave yourself, Lemony. Don't feel Beatrice up. She's only been here eight hours."

"What exactly did she mean by that, Lemony?" she asked when Kit left.

"Because Kit has a true love, she makes fun of me for my lack of one," he lied. He'd told Kit once that he liked Beatrice. She'd meant what she said. Abso-freakin'-lutely meant it.

"Oh, I thought she meant that," she twisted her fingers through his, "you liked me and she didn't want you to kill your chances with me. But I could be wrong." She pulled her hand away. He sat there stunned. Was it a dream? Pinch me, he thought. Some part of his brain registered a question being asked but the rest of him wasn't paying attention.

"Hey, Beatrice?"

"Yeah."

"Would you like to accompany me to a film screening and a meal here afterwards sometime?"

"Dinner and a movie, you mean? Like a date?" She looked towards the TV.

"Yes. Friday, maybe?" He watched Kit talk to her Dewey outside.

"Friday? What about Saturday?"

"Busy. Sunday?"

"I'm going back to get the rest of my stuff."

"Now?"

"Now sounds wonderful if you're treating."


	3. Intimacy

**Two years later**

"I love you, Lemony," she whispered.

"I love you, too, Beatrice," he replied, kissing her neck gently. "Did you…? I mean, um…Was—?"

"It was great." She giggled, a sound he usually hated to hear from her. He began to think that it was quite a wonderful sound to hear in bed.

"In bed." Another way of saying "sex." Jacques would probably make fun of "The Gothic Princess," as he called her, for making love to a bookwormy boy who wanted to be an author. He recalled a conversation pertaining to what he would write about ending with most everyone in the room arguing with each other. Kit and Dewey defending him. Jacques and his girlfriend at the time harassing him. He and Beatrice had never uttered a single word, which was completely in character for him, but not for her.

He had been noticing little changes like that over the past few months. She often didn't want to leave her apartment, not even to go to the music store or his house. She'd sit in her living room, playing something depressing on one of her many instruments, or watching horror movies again and again. Sometimes he wasn't even allowed in the small apartment. He was worried about her.

He decided he couldn't put off asking any longer. "Beatrice? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine; why do you ask?"

"It's just…." He sighed. How was he to go about this? "…I'm worried about you. You seem, well, depressed more than usual, I suppose. Are you okay?"

He was afraid she wasn't going to answer his question. But she did. "I'm just thinking about…stuff."

"What kind of 'stuff'?"

"Stuff that happened after I moved to New York." He put his arms around her waist. He wanted to know what had happened to make her so depressed over six years afterwards, but he didn't. He would wait patiently until she was ready to tell him. To trust him.

He didn't have to wait very long.

"Soon after we got settled in New York, I met this guy. We started dating and he basically wanted sex right off the bat. I said no, and he seemed to be alright with that. He'd go to parties and get drunk and high on everything there was and come home and ask me, 'Is there's any room in them jeans for me?' There never was and finally one night, I was going to give in, just to shut him up, but…. Well, I changed my mind and wanted to stop, but he told me that he couldn't—not wouldn't, but couldn't—and he'd have me if he wanted me." He felt a series of tears roll onto his shoulder. "I thought he…_loved_ me," she whispered.

It took a moment for the meaning of her words to fully sink in. Rape. That selfish pig-dog had raped her.

He pulled away from her. "I didn't…hurt you or anything, did I? Remind you of it?"

"No, no," she assured him. She pulled herself closer to him and he held her. "There's a humongous difference between forced and consensual sex. I _wanted_ this," she drug her fingers down his chest, "and I didn't change my mind. You…"

"I what?"

"You actually love me." Silence fell over the small bedroom and they were both asleep soon afterwards.


	4. Accusations

**The incident mentioned in this chapter came from my imagination. I don't think it was ever mentioned in any of the books, although, I think it sounds like something Olaf would do. And I had to have something to pin on Lemony. Oh, well...**

A week passed and they hadn't spoken a single meaningful word to each other. Hadn't kissed or held hands or smiled at each other. He'd managed to steal a kiss when she came over to talk to Kit one night. A week turned into three or four and he still hadn't seen her.

Over a month after the proposal and the sex, she called to ask him to come to her apartment. The drive over was silent as the grave. His thoughts were filled with ways to apologize for whatever he had done.

_Beatrice, I'm sorry._

_Beatrice, forgive me. I still love you._

_Beatrice, whatever it is that I did, I'm sorry. I love you._

He knocked on her door. _Beatrice, I love—_

"Lemony, I'm so glad you came. I have to talk to you. It's really important." He shut the door behind him, wondering why she was acting like this.

"Sit," she threw over her shoulder, motioning in the general direction of the living room. He sat down, his mind racing. She disappeared into the kitchen, asking if he was thirsty. He wasn't. Was he sure? Yes, he was sure. She appeared with a can of soda and to his dismay sat in the chair opposite him. Not beside him.

"Bee, I love you. I'm sorry for—"

"No." She let her head drop.

"What?" he asked, puzzled.

"Don't say you're sorry. You don't have anything to apologize for." He detected more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She looked up at him and sighed. "I want to break off our engagement."

"What?" He was shocked beyond belief. His fiancée, his lover, didn't want to get married to him? Why? What had he done?

"I don't want to get married right now. To you." She came over to sit beside him.

"Why?"

"You lied to me about where you were in September. You were at The Headquarters with O. when he ruined the foundation. Thank God M. stopped you guys." She handed him several photographs, one showing he and O. dragging several barrels of fire-retarding chemicals behind them. Another picture showed them dumping the chemicals on the foundation of The Headquarters. O. had dumped so much of it on the building, it had begun to erode the foundation. He'd gone to see it himself right after it had happened. Now, however, he could see plain as day the places where the pictures had been doctored. His head was just a bit too big for his body, the color of the skin on his hand was not quite the same shade as the skin on his face. He laughed a little. "No, Bee, these pictures—"

"_NO!_" she screamed. "Everyone has told me that; they have _not_ been doctored! I trust Fernald! Why would he lie to me? He's my friend, Lemony, my friend!"

"I'm your fiancé, Beatrice. Why would _I_ lie to you? Why would I want to tear down The Headquarters? VFD is my life, Bee. Why would I want to destroy it?"

"I don't know! But you did!" She started crying, repeating the words "you did" over and over again.

He didn't quite know what to do. Should he try to convince her that it wasn't him in those pictures?

No, her mind was made up on that matter. Should he comfort her?

No, she wouldn't accept it. Should he ask Fernald where he got the pictures?

Yes, but would he?

No.


	5. Memories

He hated the memory of that night. Falsely accused of committing an unforgivable act and having his emotions viciously ripped apart by the woman he loved more than anything was just a bit too much for one day.

Knock, knock. "Hey, Lemony? You okay? I thought I heard you crying last night but, um, Dewey and I were—well, we didn't want to disturb you. Is everything okay?" He heard the door open and shut. Go away, he thought. He didn't want to be bothered. What he wanted, if anyone cared anymore, was to be left alone to cry and contemplate a bullet to the head or poison in his coffee. He knew he'd never do it, though. A true volunteer wouldn't take "the coward's way out." He laughed slightly. He didn't know why.

He felt his sister sit down on the bed. Dewey's voice spoke first. "What's wrong, future-little-brother-in-law-o'-mine?"

"Dewey! I thought we agreed—"

"He'd have found out sooner or later, right? Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today, procrastinator?" He felt worse now. They were happy and in love and engaged. He was sad and broken-hearted and not engaged. Not anymore.

"Leave, Dewey Derek Denouement!"

"Okay, The-Future-Mrs.-Dewey-Derek-Denouement!" She removed a pencil from her hair and threw it at him. The sharp tip hit him in the ear.

"You deserve it!" She looked down at Lemony as Dewey shut his door. "Sorry. He proposed about five minutes ago and wants to tell everyone he knows. The whole organization will probably know by six a.m." She rolled her eyes. "What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. An eternity later, Kit said, "Lemony, you can tell me anything. I'll understand. And if I don't, I won't pass judgment until I hear the whole story. You know my rules."

"I don't want to talk."

"Ya sure?"

He was about to answer positively when he suddenly wasn't so convinced himself. His sister's presence often had that effect on him.

"Beatrice broke off the engagement. She says she doesn't love me anymore."

"She showed you the pictures, didn't she?" He nodded, more tears coming to his eyes. She noticed them, like she always seemed to notice when he was crying, and wiped them away. "She showed me, too. They're fakes."

"I tried to tell her, but she—she screamed, 'No, they're not!' and told me she trusted Fernald; why would he lie to her? He's her friend."

"He's O.'s friend. That was probably his face that was so expertly cut out of those pictures. I'm sorry, bubby. Dewey didn't mean to rub our engagement in your face; he's just excited."

"Like I was."

"Yeah, like you were." In an effort to cheer him, she went on, "Lemony, Jacques and I care about you. Please don't start thinking about guns and arsenic."

"Actually, it was bullets and poison in general."

"Well, don't think about those either. Think about how much better off you are without Bee if she doesn't love you than you are married to her if she doesn't love you."


	6. Names

The phone rang, interrupting his train of thought. He'd decided what he was goingto write about, but didn't quite know where to start, whether to make it look fictional or not. He'd also decided that VFD is a difficult thing to write about. "Hello?"

"Is Lemony there?" Beatrice.

"Spe—speaking." If the conversation went on for too long, he would start screaming like a child.

"Oh, hey. Are you gonna be home today?"

"I should be. Why?" _She's not coming over,_ he thought.

"I need to talk to you. It's—"

"You accused me of trying to destroy The Headquarters. You can tell me over the phone or not at all." Where had that come from?

Silence came from the other end of the line. Suddenly, "Bertrand and I are getting married on Sunday. Eloping. You and the rest of your family are invited. Don't tell anyone."

Any hope of winning her back evaporated like dew in the Sahara sun. "Eloping? You mean you expect me to come to your wedding when you're being wed to another man? Kit, Dewey, and Jacques, maybe, but not me. Why so soon, anyway? I wasn't aware you were dating Bertrand." _Were you cheating on me?_ he thought.

"Because, umm, well…"

"You're pregnant, aren't you? Congrats, Bee. I wish you and that pig-dog a happy life and I hope Bertrand's baby is healthy and all that rot. When did you sleep with him?" He knew he shouldn't have asked. He would end up yelling at her. Kit would hear and ask what was wrong.

"Second date." He could hear her voice shake like she was about to cry. He didn't care. Why didn't he care?

"My guess would have been first. The second makes it perfectly—"

"It's not Bertrand's. It's yours, Lemony Snicket!"

"What?" His heart stopped beating and the rage disappeared. Was he really going to be a daddy? It was possible. The sex had been unprotected. He could be a father.

"I called because I'm trying to think of names, and I've decided I want you to pick one. You can't tell anyone, though. Bertrand thinks it's his."

"You want me to name it? You're marrying another man and telling him he's the father, yet you want me to name it? How do I know it's really mine?"

"I didn't tell him it was his! He assumed since I was with him when I found out, it must be his. I guess he wants to be a daddy and never thought about us. Lemony, you just have to trust me. I wouldn't lie to you about carrying your child. Bertrand—"

"Fine, then. Violet." He'd always liked that name. Since it was apparent she would force him to name it, whether it was his or Bertrand's, he would pick his favorite name.

"What about a boy?"

He thought for a moment. There was no boy's name he liked. The name he told her he'd begun to hate. "Bertrand. For its daddy."


	7. Costumes

**Fifteen years later.**

He snuck in through the back entrance, knowing full well he had been banned from the ball. He had to be there, though, to save a fellow volunteer's life. Surely they would excuse him for that?

He hurried through the crowd, costumed as a bullfighter, to find his sister. She was dressed in a skimpy Genie's costume that showed off her slightly curved belly and Dewey had a supposedly magic lamp attached to the belt of his Middle Eastern urchin garb. The three of them looked great together. He walked up to them, not wanting to interrupt the insane conversation Dewey was carrying on with his offspring.

"You'd better be a girl," he said, stroking his wife's stomach gently. "If not, I'm afraid I'd be forced to kill you. I really don't want to do that, because it took Mommy and me over five years to concieve you and we love you a whole lot already, but I will. Be a girl, please. It's for your own good." Kit laughed.

"Did you know," Lemony said coming up behind them, "that the father determines the gender of the baby? It'd be your fault if it was a boy, Dewey."

"Lemony?" his sister asked in amazement. "How'd you get in?"

"Through the back. Listen, where's Bee? I need to find her."

"She's dressed as a green dragonfly. I haven't seen her in a while. Last time I did, though, she was on the balcony with Bertrand."

"Thanks." He rubbed her belly. "Be a girl. Uncle Lemony doesn't want Daddy to go to prison for murder." He felt it (her?) kick.

* * *

She was still out on the balcony, sans husband. "Beatrice?"

"Bertrand, sweetie, you took long enough. I was starting to won—Lemony?" She took her hand off his chest. "What do you want?" Hostility and distrust had become an integral part of their relationship. He hated it.

"Bee, please listen to me. You and Bertrand need to go home. Now. I heard O. talking about—"

"Beatrice, who is that?" Her beloved Bertrand walked up behind him. He turned to face the man who'd replaced him. "Oh, hi…Lemony. Is…everything alright?" He looked to his wife, a questioning expression on his face. An expression that oh, so clearly said "WTF?"

"I don't know. Is it?"

"No. I heard O. and his associates talking ab—"

"There he is! Get him!" Security guards. Crap.

He went on in a rush of words. "Beatrice, you have to go back to the house and get the kids. Olaf is going to—" A gag was shoved in his mouth, preventing speech. Hands pulled at him, dragging him off the balcony, away from Beatrice. The gagged slipped for a moment and he managed to scream "Count Olaf is—!" before they turned a corner and knocked him into unconsciousness.


	8. Worries

Three days went by and nothing happened to Beatrice or the kids. He could have cared less about Bertrand. He'd stayed over at Kit and Dewey's (it was closer to the Baudelaire mansion), and sat by the phone. Just as he got up to get some coffee on the fourth day, it rang.

"Is Lemony there?" M. asked.

"Speaking."

"Lemony, the Baudelaire mansion just burned down. Burned to the ground. Nothing's left. Have you seen O. lately?"

"Oh my God, was anyone hurt?"

"The kids—all three of them—were at Briny Beach. They're fine. Now, Bee and Bertrand…they haven't said anything definite yet. They haven't found bodies yet, either. She probably got out through the tunnel, went to E.'s place. I'm sure she's fine. Have you seen O. or not?!"

"No, I haven't. Not in a while. Who's with the kids?"

"A.'s going over there right now. They're gonna stay with him until stuff is cleared up. If need be, he'll find volunteers to adopt them. No one else. They'll know VFD."

His Violet, without her mother and her stepfather? Impulse said, "I'll adopt them." _I'm her father_, his mind added silently.

"I'll tell A. but the will might say who's to take them."

"Oh, I never thought of that. Never mind, then." An idea struck him, and if it was going to happen he needed to leave immediately. "Thanks for telling me, M., but I gotta go." He hung up without another word, and ran to the door.

"Who was on the phone, Lemony?" Kit called as he hung up and reached for his coat and hat.

"M. I'll tell you about it when I get back."


	9. Sadness Personified

**Sorry about chapters 8 and 9 being short. The last chapter will make up for it, I promise. And, just in case anyone wants to know, I'm working on an alternate ending for _So Unlike Violet._ It's gonna take a while, though...**

* * *

He arrived at Briny Beach around the same time A. did. He crouched down in the sand a few hundred feet from them. Violet had been skipping rocks, Klaus had been studying the creepy-crawlies, and Sunny had been biting a rock her sister hadn't seen. They looked so young and innocent, not deserving to lose their parents. _Violet still has her father_, he thought. _I'm her father._

_I'm a daddy._ Even after close to fifteen years, the thought of creating another human life still amazed him.

"I'm afraid I have some very bad news, children," A. said. "Your parents…have perished in a terrible fire." Silence. "They perished in a fire that destroyed the entire house. I'm very, very sorry to tell you this, my dears." Shock, pure and simple shock, had set in, making Klaus very snippy, and Violet very quiet. Even Sunny, who was too young to fully understand what had happened, had stopped biting her rock.

They held one another's hands and let A. led them to the car. He saw tears in Violet's eyes. Lemony started walking towards them. By the time he could see the car again, the younger Baudelaires were in it, their (half?) sister about to follow suit. For some reason he was never able to understand, she looked directly at him, surprised to see another soul in the universe.

She didn't look like either of her fathers. She was her mother, from her features to the way she walked, even the intelligence behind those beautiful tear-filled grey eyes. She was Beatrice's child, no one could dispute that. There was no trace of Snicket (or Baudelaire?) to be found in her, only Bee. He felt he should say something to her.

"Violet, I'm s—" was all he got out before Sunny pulled on her sister's black and red dress (her mother's, the dress she wore on their first date) and her eyes left him as she got in the car.

He knew then how he would write his book. He would write about Violet and her siblings as they encountered VFD. He would follow them as they discovered the secrets attached to it. He would be near them if ever they needed him.

Later, he found out he had a problem on his hands. Olaf had gotten custody of them. The very man who had set their lives and the lives of so many others ablaze was now their guardian. To use the term _very_ loosely.


	10. Unanswered Questions

**YET ANOTHER WARNING! This is the last chapter. It's pretty long, so it should make up for the shortness of the last two chapters. Thank you.**

**By the way, Kit and Dewey are a little OOC in this chapter, methinks. Decide for yourself.**

* * *

He told Kit and Dewey that night. They were stunned as well. "We have to fight this!" Dewey exclaimed. "He'll kill them just to try to get that fortune. We have to—"

"Dewey, it won't do any good," Kit interrupted, trying to hold back tears. "He'll fight back, and you know as well as I do he won't fight fairly. They're dead either way."

"But, Kit, we can't just give up! We can't just abandon them to Olaf and hope he leaves them alive! We have to help them!"

"Dewey," she placed his hand on her stomach, "do you want to live to see our child born? I do, so I suggest you let the Baudelaires handle it themselves."

"But they can't, sweetheart. They don't know what he's like, what he's capable of doing." He took her other hand in his free one. "I want to see my baby, too, but there's no assurance anyone will live past tomorrow. We take life for granted, Kit. We could sit here and do nothing, to hurt or to help others, and die in six hours. At least if Olaf gets us, we'd have died helping someone, which is why VFD was formed. We might be able to distract Olaf and give the kids a chance to escape!"

"No, Dewey! I won't put _my_ child's life in danger like that! No!"

"I didn't say you had to go. I meant—"

As much as he hated to interrupt, Lemony had thought of Dewey's next argument and knew it wouldn't go over too well. "Dewey, she's right. There's nothing we can do. If we try to rescue them, it's not for certain they'll come with us. Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to get them away from Olaf, but we can't. Kit's right, don't put the baby's life on the line. What if it's a precious little baby girl?" Dewey sighed. He opened his mouth and shut it several times, as if he was going to say something.

Dewey glared at him. "That was low, Lemony. Real low."

"It got the idea out of your head, didn't it?"

"Honey," Kit said, "I gotta go to bed. You two can stay up until all hours arguing, but I'm going to sleep."

Her husband stood up quickly. "I can I come with you?"

"Dewey, you're my husband. We share a bed—or body—unless you've done something stupid."

"Well, that's more li—"

Lemony was forced to interrupt again. "I suggest you not say that if you want to continue to be married to my sister."

They left hand in hand, talking about baby names. He watched them sadly, wishing he could've had a life with Beatrice. No, Bertrand, the lucky undeserving dog, had gotten that pleasure. He _didn't_ deserve her. Never in a million years could he love her the way Lemony did. After the bitterness and anger of the break-up had faded, he realized how much he still loved her. She'd stabbed his heart and left it for dead, as it were, but it was still beating for her. Even the dedication of his book (which was effectively all he'd written) was about her. _For Beatrice, darling, dearest, dead._ Though she would never read it, never know about all the trials and tribulations, as well as the few happy moments, in her children's lives, he felt it was his duty to write about them.

Inspiration struck him. He hurried and got his notebook and wrote as fast as his fingers could.

_If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children, and they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery, and despair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes._

Perfect. A warning. Surely no one would want to read about such a dreadful occurrence. Why was he writing, then? If members of VFD would know the whole story, maybe they wouldn't look daggers at him and whisper behind their hands when he did appear in public. The Baudelaires would have to find out the truth behind their parents' hasty marriage and the organization they were apart of sooner or later. It was the only thing he didn't—hadn't—liked about the way Beatrice and Bertrand had raised his Violet: they'd kept VFD a secret from her.

How could they, though? How could they hide their lives from her? VFD was effectively part of her heritage. Beatrice's family had been active volunteers ever since the organization started. Violet's life, if not Klaus and Sunny's lives, should have revolved around VFD. They should have learned all the codes, known where to go and who to trust when they were in danger. People like Kit and Jacques and Dewey and Frank. People like M. and T.

She should have known people like her father.

_**Eight years ago**_

_He decided to call her and ask, rather than torture himself about it. "Is Beatrice there?"_

"_Who?" asked a small voice belonging to a four-year-old Klaus James Baudelaire._

"_Can I please talk to your mommy, Klaus?"_

"_Yeah." He put the phone down with a clunk. In the background, he heard someone crying. Was it Violet?_

"_Hello?" She seemed tired. He smiled at the sound of her voice._

"_Hey, Beatrice. It's me."_

"_What do you want?"_

"_I heard that Vi was—"_

"_My daughter's name is Violet, Lemony. What did you hear?"_

"_She's my daughter, too, Beatri—"_

"What_ did you hear?"_

"_I heard that she was sick. Is there anything I can—"_

"_It's just the chicken pox. Violet will be fine." Had she ever so slightly stressed her child's name?_

"_Well, is there anything you need? Itch medicines? Anything at all? Has Klaus gotten from her?"_

"_No, Bertrand just went out—no, Klaus, not right now—he went out to get some more. And no, she got it from her brother. Vi, honey," she called out to her daughter, "get your brother some pudding." _Hypocrite_, he thought._

_His heart started pounding as he got up the nerve to ask his next question. "May I come over and see her?"_

_She hung up_.

Now he would never figure out why he hadn't been allowed to see her, never be able to tell Violet he was her father. Bertrand had probably been a better dad than Lemony could have ever thought about being. He was all she'd ever known, and she'd mourned his death. As much as he hated to admit it, Bertrand _was_ her father, in every way but one.

And that was a big part of the reason it hurt him so much to think about his baby growing up with another man. Because Violet probably didn't know his name, because Bertrand had been there for her when her real father wasn't even allowed to see her, because of her mother's unspoken decision to stay with Bertrand whilst carrying Lemony's child…

That nagging suspicion came to haunt him again. Was she really his? If she was, why hadn't he been allowed to see her? It would make sense if Bertrand was her biological father. Beatrice was mad at him for attempting to tear down The Headquarters, and she didn't want her children to know such a horrible villain.

Frustrated, he went over to the bookshelf and scanned it for something to take his mind off Violet and her mother. He came across a thick novel entitled _St. James_. A woman was the villain. Her name was Maribella Catalina Santiago, and she had killed Mateo, her roommate-turned-lover-turned-stalker.

He'd decided, a very long time ago, that he should have never finished that book.


End file.
